Two Thousand Fourteen

This New Year's Day and the lead up to it was filled with some hilarity, relatively speaking, at least in hindsight...

I came down with a wicked stomach bug! I always pride myself on my iron gut but really, there are no words.. I was completely out of commission - body aches, sweating, headaches, vomiting from early New Year's Eve morning until about now, when I am finally regaining my strength and am able to keep food down. I slept for most of New Year's Eve until Flavio woke me up to feed me chicken soup and to toast the new year with gingerale. It was gnarly.

So today, with some health and clarity, I'm trying to find the meaning in this freakish flu. Here's the lesson I'm taking: The reality is that sometimes you can plan to go to a New Year's party, wear your new dress, drink champagne and feel great, but life may have other plans, and things can get messy, frustrating, painful, and downright disappointing. Regardless, you have to keep rolling through with your chin up and your spirits high, riding life's wave no matter what it brings. That's how I'm moving into 2014. Grateful that this bug is passing, with a reminder of how fragile our health can be, and ready to ride the wave of this new year, no matter what it brings.

{guava centerpiece, from Jan & Gary's tree}

So on to the resolutions, or non-resolutions...

I have mixed feelings on resolutions. While I think goals and self-improvement are a great thing, there's something depressing about ringing in a new year by asking us to change ourselves, when part of me just wants to declare:

Dear self,

You are enough. Keep being you.

Love,
me.

So instead of dreading this new year with pledges of more vegetables and pounds lost, I am embracing 2014 with a list that reminds me to live mindfully, celebrate life's little moments, and to rejoice in self-care. Here are some of the small things I want to pay attention to this year:

:: Take day trips

:: Light candles with dinner

:: Enjoy more mystery dates

:: Drink more herbal tea, less coffee

:: Spend more time with my parents

:: Daydream, relax, breathe, play more and worry less

:: Purchase all things mindfully and do another financial fast

:: Stay in the present, noticing and celebrating and being extremely grateful for every day of 2014, even if it includes stomach viruses, and whatnot.

I love the quiet, the organizing, the cleansing of January, with a new year stretched out before us all shiny and hopeful. I can't help but feel abuzz with the promise of 2014. Happy, healthy New Year, friends! xo